Muhammed 'King Mo' Lawal to appear before NSAC on March 27

The Nevada State Athletic Commission will in two weeks decide the immediate professional fate of Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal.

NSAC executive director Keith Kizer on Tuesday told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that the former Strikeforce light-heavyweight champ is scheduled to appear at a commission meeting on March 27 in Las Vegas.

Lawal (9-1 MMA, 4-1 SF) faces a possible one-year suspension, a fine, and the overturning of his recent win over Lorenz Larkin to a no-contest.

The NSAC flagged Lawal 10 days after he defeated Larkin at “Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine,” took place Jan. 7 at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, when a post-fight drug test came back positive for steroid Drostanolone. The Nevada Attorney General’s office then temporarily suspended him pending a hearing.

Lawal immediately declared his innocence. In a subsequent letter sent to the Attorney General, his representative, Mike Kogan, stated that Lawal took an over-the-counter supplement, S-Mass Lean Gainer, which was later found to contain a chemical precursor to Drostanolone.

Multiple knee injuries prompted Lawal to take the supplement, which he purchased in April 2010 at a Max Muscle store, though he maintains he was unaware of its ingredients. Kogan said today that the supplement company’s website wasn’t online when Lawal purchased the supplement. (The supplement is no longer available; a warning on its product page warms of S-Mass Lean Gainer’s anabolic properties.) Yet the fighter and his camp don’t plan to contest the commission’s findings.

“Ultimately an athlete is responsible for what he/she puts in their body, and Mr. Lawal’s intent is not to shift blame or find an excuse,” stated the letter sent to the Attorney General. “His intent was to figure out for himself what may have caused this positive test so that he can make proper adjustments to his supplement list and avoid this nightmare in the future.”

Lawal said via text message that he expects to speak before the commission. In a previous interview with MMAjunkie.com, he admitted that he didn’t note the medications on his pre-fight medical paperwork, nor did he disclose them to a NSAC doctor during a pre-fight examination. But he steadfastly denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.

Kogan said they will be as forthcoming as possible before the commission and attempt to explain the circumstances that led to Lawal’s positive test.

“We’re going to go in there and explain to them the same story that we’ve been saying all along, and see what happens,” Kogan said. “When we originally wrote [the letter], it was for internal use and in the media. I don’t know anything about these commissioners and what they know and what they don’t know, so we’re going to give a little history on [Lawal’s wrestling background] and add a little bit more of answering the questions of previous research (about the supplement).

“A few people said if he just types the supplement’s name in the Google bar, the first thing that comes up is some illegal website that sells it saying that it’s bad. But what nobody bothered to see was that the illegal website, which no longer even sells [the supplement], wasn’t registered … (until) almost a year after Mo had gotten it from the store.

“I don’t know of any athlete that spends a monthly basis going through Google to verify all his [expletive] is still in order.”

Lawal underwent Olympic-style drug testing several times during his amateur wrestling career and never tested positive for banned substances. He is currently recovering in San Jose, Calif., from a bad staph infection stemming from his third corrective surgery for a torn ACL.

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